


The Great Drowning

by ifyouloveme_letmebinge



Category: Supernatural
Genre: And it made me sad writing it, Angst, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel Saves Dean Winchester From Hell, Castiel's Tan Trenchcoat (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, Dean Winchester Thinks Castiel is Dead, Dean Winchester Wears Castiel's Trenchcoat, Destiel - Freeform, Favorite Object, Flashbacks to:, Hurt Dean Winchester, Leviathan Castiel (Supernatural), Like after Leviathan/God!Cas, M/M, Over-The-Top Descriptions of Castiel's Trenchcoat, Prompt: Favorite Object, S5 Destiel, S7 Destiel, SPN Hiatus Creations 2020, SPN Hiatus Writing Challenge, Set somewhere in S7, So much angst, Sprinkled in some ~, Suicidal Dean Winchester, Suicidal Thoughts, Walked into that lake and died, Week Four, at least for a good part of S7 before he comes back as Emmanuel, bc he is, so i guess that's the MCD warning there for ya, so i have to make you all sad too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:53:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24557215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifyouloveme_letmebinge/pseuds/ifyouloveme_letmebinge
Summary: Dean Winchester misses Castiel. There's only one way to be closer to him now; he has to let the trench coat breathe again.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	The Great Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!!!!  
> This was supposed to be a drabble. Like for real, last night I told myself "just write ~500 words" and then I didn't. 
> 
> So this is for the SPN Hiatus Creations challenge on Tumblr. If you're not following that blog, ummm, go do it right now because they have great stuff from really talented people!! This is my entry for the Week 4 Favorite Object from the show prompt.  
>  I chose Castiel's trench coat because 1) it's an object in the show, 2) it means a lot to me in terms of being almost a live character in the show {like Baby, ya know?} and 3) because this is an idea I've had in my head for a while and I really wanted to get down how important and pivotal the trench coat really is in the show and for the characters.
> 
> Hope you like it and I hope I make you cry at the thought of Dean wearing the beloved trench coat *insert crying emoji*

For all the ways Dean said he didn’t love Cas, he did. 

All the reasons, the lies and excuses. It was a facade. A curtain. Something to cover it up, to hide it away. 

Hide his true feelings away and keep them safe, where no harm would come to them. Because he knew just how  _ much  _ harm could come to them. 

He thought that a box or maybe a chest would be able to keep them hidden. He would stuff them in there and lock it up, bury it and throw the key away. And then he would be safe. 

He thought that possibly a mask could do the job just as well. That it could cover his face and expressions, so no one would be able to read how he was truly feeling, what he was truly thinking. 

But maybe this wasn’t something that could be solved that easily. What if he needed something stronger to shield himself away from prying eyes? He thought about locking himself in a room, how the four walls would be unbearable, how they would confine him and slowly move in, gravitating towards the center, an unstoppable and concrete force that would end up squishing him to nothing. And with it, the feelings that could never see the light of day. 

He thought about many different options, all of them seeming worse than the other. 

Driving off in his car, never to be seen again. 

Or maybe he would lock himself in there and turn the engine on. 

Maybe this was all some cosmic joke and he just needed to laugh it off until Castiel appeared again. Alive. Back. 

_ Same old Cas.  _

Dean remembered the first time he saw it. He remembered the way the bullets of his shotgun tore holes into its lapels as the thunder roared around him. He remembered his panic as he didn’t see blood spurting out of the holes. He remembered it _ kept moving  _ along with Castiel, almost like an extension of him.

Like a shield. 

Castiel wore it like it was the only thing worth wearing. He never took it off and he took such good care of it, Dean thought it was a fucking  _ girlfriend  _ or something like that. 

One calm day, a couple of years before Dean fished it out of the lake, all bloodied and battered and raggedy and he brunched it into his hands, feeling his heart break at the mistreatment and his stomach go sour at the way he could barely recognize it anymore, Dean asked him. 

“So, why do you wear that trench coat all the time Cas? Do you not have any other clothes?” 

Castiel’s only sign that he ever heard Dean was the slight raise of an eyebrow and a crooked head in his direction, then his eyes squinted and he answered simply. “These are the clothes this vessel happened to be wearing at the time.” 

“Well yeah, I know  _ that,  _ but… ya know? Don’t you ever want to…  _ change  _ into something else?” 

Castiel only shook his head. 

Dean scoffed, “Why not?” 

Castiel thought for a long, long moment and then he looked straight at Dean and he was confidently serious. “This is part of my identity, now. To change this would be to change everything worth something that I’ve ever done. It would be like regressing into the static and pathetic way that I was before. I cannot go back, Dean, but I can carry this article of clothing with me towards the future. Hopefully, a better future.” 

Dean still didn’t understand. “Okay yeah,  _ but  _ that doesn’t mean that you still can’t take a freaking shower, Cas. And what do you mean,  _ before,”  _ He accented the words with his own air quotes, “Like, what even changed so much?” 

“You.” Castiel said quietly and Dean was taken aback by the weighted admission, “I took on the identity that came with this trench coat, this  _ persona _ , when I rescued  _ you _ Dean. That’s when it all changed.” 

The memory washed off Dean in foggy waves, his mind already forgetting what parts of his life, of his moments with Castiel, seemed to be true or not. Were they at Bobby’s that day? At a bar? Was Sam out on a hunt? 

He despised it. Ever since it happened, the only thing Dean could think of was to grab onto whatever fleeting memories he could, to replay them over and over. But he was  _ forgetting.  _

What does Castiel’s trench coat feel like? 

He was trembling as he pulled it out of the safe spot in Baby he hid it in for the last few months. He shook it out, taking in the creases of where it had been badly folded and crumpled for too long. The dried blood splatters and stains all around the collar and under the lapels, down the arms and dark red or brown where his hands would have been. 

It even reached all the way down, although less concentrated, but still the hem of it was falling apart. Stitches coming off, dried dirt and mud and spots of dark red stained the hem. 

Dean brought it up to his face, thinking to hug it or something stupid like that,  _ just to feel him again,  _ when he noticed he had buried his face in the rough dirty beige fabric. 

He felt it warm his cheeks, the good quality of it, especially after all it went through, surprised him. He could feel almost  _ every thread _ and the lines they followed. It caressed his skin, it scratched him and it seeped something that was not only the mud and dirt and  _ blood, God _ , and lake water smell through his pores, but something pure  _ Cas  _ also entered him through the trench coat, as if it was carrying that with it all along. 

Just waiting for Dean to take that first step. 

He was hesitant about it. After all, it felt like a desecration of Castiel’s memory, in a way. It felt like stealing, betraying, and laughing in his face. 

But he pushed through it because he  _ needed  _ to do it. For his own sanity and healing. 

He flipped it over his head and drove his hand through the sleeve, feeling it catch on his flannel, surprised because he expected it to be a longer journey until his hand and wrist appeared on the other side. He did the same with his other arm and then he adjusted it. Dean flipped the lapels down and flattened them on his collarbone and shoulders, he got a hold of the belt and thought to buckle it when he remembered Cas never did that. 

He let it hang idly on his body, possibly too small for his size as he saw his shoulders constricted in the mirror, his wrists showing too much, how it barely hung down to his knees, and he was confused at the fact that it seemed to always be so big on Castiel. 

He took himself in wearing the trench coat and his throat felt too thick to form words, his brain too much on sensory overload to form coherent thoughts. He could only  _ feel.  _ And  _ remember.  _

He only wished he could remember what it was like to have  _ Castiel  _ be wearing that trench coat. Because it didn’t  _ belong _ to him, it wasn’t  _ his _ identity. No matter how much he wanted it to be. 

But what Dean would never forget or be able to lie to himself about was the first time he put on the trench coat. Because he expected something else when he did it. He expected it to cover him, shield him and  _ protect  _ him from the ugly world out there, from his leftover  _ responsibilities.  _ He expected it to hide him from the mess he had to clean up now. He was  _ so sure  _ this would be it, that if he did this, it would pluck away his feelings one by one, so that he could focus on the job at hand, so that he could finally  _ move on.  _

But to his sudden strike of grief and self-pity and hatred, it did the exact opposite. 

It was like opening the floodgates for the great drowning. 

It didn’t aid in his desperate quest to bury parts of himself, no. 

It  _ saved  _ him. 

The trench coat ripped him open. It cut him  _ deeply _ and crawled inside and it let his organs spill from the inside out. It electrocuted him until he was fried, smoke coming out of his ears, and yet it made him feel completely sated and numb. It amplified  _ every single feeling  _ he had ever felt and it stole his breath from his lungs. It crushed him into dust and it restarted his sinus rhythm. It sent him to another dimension and it kept him grounded to the rough, dirty and ragged fabric and recognizable  _ smell _ and  _ feel _ of Castiel. 

It was like stepping into  _ his  _ body and seeing things through  _ his  _ eyes. It was like coming alive for the first time since Castiel died. 


End file.
